News & Events

Health & Wellbeing: Tinnitracks wins first Idea Challenge finals

Team Tinnitracks have claimed the top prize of €40,000 as winners of EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge 2014 in the category Health and Wellbeing.

With their idea proposal of a mobile adaptation of the Tinnitracks technology that treats tinnitus with music, Tinnitracks won the EU wide contest.

Award ceremony

The winners were announced during an Awards’s ceremony at the Intramural Care Innovations for Extramural Care Symposium in Eindhoven on 21 May 2014. The winning team is comprised of Joerg Land, Matthias Lanz and Adrian Noetzel.

The second prize of 25,000 Euro went to the team of Johann Huber, Christopher Lorenz and Peter Schneider from SOMA Analytics. The UK startup has developed a patent pending technology that is able to measure stress-related changes in behaviour, visualize them to the user and provide personalized interventions to help prevent harmful conditions.

Finally, the startup Horus from Italy won the third prize of 15,000 with their proposal for a small assistive device that fits on glasses and works as a personal assistant for blind and visually impaired people.

In addition to the prize money all winners now look forward to six months office space at one of EIT ICT Labs Co-Location Centres, mentoring and coaching support from the Business Development Accelerator as well as the invaluable opportunity to become part of the biggest innovation network in Europe with over 120 partners.

High quality

Jean Gelissen said: "We were very pleased with the high number of high quality submissions. EIT ICT Labs network is open for all the finalists.”

Patrick Starting added: “There is so much potential for innovative ideas that can improve the quality of life. Almost all ideas that were submitted in the category Health and Wellbeing could make it to the market.”

The thematic and business development experts Jean Gelissen (Action Line Lead), Patrick Strating (Eindhoven Node Director), Fabio Carati (Business Development Accelerator), as well as Carla Scholten (Director of Embedded Fitness), Bert Gyselinckx (Managing Director at Holst Centre), and Guido Hegener (partner at X Health) evaluated the submissions for the novelty and uniqueness of the idea, the market and internationalization potential, the quality of the team, and the technological feasibility.

More finals to come

Three more pitch finals are about to be presented in Rennes, Munich and Helsinki in the categories Future Cloud, Smart Spaces, and Cyber Physical Systems in the first wave of pitch finals. Click here for more information on finalist teams, dates, locations and agendas for each of the respective events.

The second wave will take place during autumn. Smart Energy Systems, Urban Life & Mobility, Internet of Things, and Cyber Security & Privacy are the four categories of this 2nd wave. More on the Idea Challenge landing page.